


I Stood Upon a High Place

by kaydeefalls



Category: Lord of the Rings RPF
Genre: Community: contrelamontre, Multi, POV Outsider
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-08-10
Updated: 2003-08-10
Packaged: 2017-10-14 04:41:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/145489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaydeefalls/pseuds/kaydeefalls
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"One looked up, grinning, / And said, 'Comrade! Brother!'"</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Stood Upon a High Place

**Author's Note:**

> Improv fic for ContreLaMontre. Inspired by line of poem. 30-minute time limit, I went a little over (sorry).

_I stood upon a high place,  
And saw, below, many devils  
Running, leaping,  
and carousing in sin.  
 **One looked up, grinning,  
And said, "Comrade! Brother!"**_  
\--Stephen Crane

* * * * *

"It'll be fantastic!" Elijah had said, grinning like a five-year-old on Christmas morning. "Just the hobbits, all by ourselves for a whole fucking week, surfing every day! Come on, you know you want to!"

And it wasn't like Sean could just say that no, he had actually planned on getting some rest during their vacation, you know, see his family for more than five minutes at a time and just do as much nothing as he wanted.

Well, he could have said that, but he didn't. Which brought him here, standing in the foyer of the smallish-sized beach house they'd all pooled their hard-earned cash to rent for the week, wondering why exactly he was submitting himself to a whole week full of potential safety hazards. Like drowning, or breaking his neck, or looking like an idiot in a wetsuit. Not that he didn't like surfing. He did. A lot, even. He just didn't like thinking about it.

Then again, doing just about anything with the other three hobbits qualified as a safety hazard.

"Fuckin' A!" Elijah shouted, practically bowling him over en route to the living room. "Dude, just look at this place!"

Dom catapulted through the doorway. "Hey, Billy, Sean, check out the view!"

Billy pushed his way inside at a more respectable pace, lugging suitcases, just as Elijah darted across the foyer into what was probably the kitchen.

It was a nice house, albeit probably not large enough for two hyperactive young men, one equally energetic (but less bouncy) Billy, and Sean. But the view from the living room was incredible, and with luck, they'd be too busy surfing to wreck the place too badly.

"Great rug," Dom said, stretching out spread-eagled across the living room rug, which was exceedingly thick and, well, fluffy. Dom grinned up at Sean and Billy wickedly. "Shag rug, right?"

Elijah's voice floated in from the kitchen. "I found the liquor cabinet!"

"Shagging and alcohol in less than two minutes," Billy said bemusedly, as Elijah bounded back into the living room, a bottle of scotch already in hand. "Quite the den of sin and iniquity, eh?"

At this, Dom leapt up, throwing one arm around Billy and the other around Elijah. "I dub thee Den of Sin and Iniquity!" he shouted, presumably at the house in general.

Sean groaned and put down his duffel bag.

*

Sean doesn't remember when or where or how they told him. It might have been in Feet one morning, in hushed tones and mumbled words around the makeup people, Elijah looking guiltily at Dom looking defiantly at Billy looking honestly at Sean, eyes meeting for a second in the mirrors before darting away, shifting uncomfortably in place until the guy trying to airbrush his Feet jabbed pointedly at his ankle.

Or maybe it was on set, between takes, behind a tree or a rock on some wonderfully scenic location, with Elijah leaning away from him and trying to mimic Dom's forced nonchalance, with Dom leaning into Billy and whispering god-knows-what into his ear, with Billy trying to explain through nervous chuckles and glances at Elijah.

Or maybe it was in a pub after a hard day's shooting, all four of them slightly tipsy with beer and nerves, Elijah half-falling across Dom and Billy when he brought the third (fourth? fifth?) round from the bar, Dom tousling Elijah's hair and avoiding Sean's eyes, Billy just sitting back tiredly and letting it all come out.

Or maybe they never told him at all. Maybe he just knew, because when a person works with three other people so closely, he memorizes all their little quirks and rhythms, and when something like this happens, they don't need to tell him about it, because he immediately notices and identifies the subtle changes. The looks, the touches, the minute embarrassments and hastily averted eyes. The knowing that he's on the outside of something looking in, and there's nothing he can do about it.

So it really doesn't matter when or where or how or if they told him, because he just knows.

*

So it really shouldn't be a surprise, when he stumbled drowsily down the stairs very late on the first night (he'd gone to bed early, then woken up a few hours later and couldn't fall back asleep to save his life) to find the other three hobbits in a rather compromising situation in the middle of the living room rug.

Shag rug, Dom had called it, and they were apparently putting the theory to the test. Or had, very recently, because all that remained of whatever-had-just-recently-happened was three decidedly naked bodies twined around each other, hopelessly entangled. Elijah was partly stretched out across the other two, using Dom's chest as a pillow, one arm wrapped tightly around him and the other reaching over to rest loosely across Billy's back. Billy's hand rested gently on Elijah's smooth stomach, his head somewhere in the vicinity of Dom's shoulder.

And Dom, Dom was still awake, and at Sean's footsteps on the stairs he looked up. Their eyes met for half a second, Sean's wide with surprise and embarrassment, Dom's dark and lazy and sated.

Slowly, deliberately, Dom grinned.

Swallowing hard and shaking his head, Sean turned and tripped his way back up the stairs, half-running into his room and shutting the door. His bed felt very empty, and the part of his mind that was a Responsible Married Man told him it was because he missed Christine and Ali (which he did) and directed him to just go to sleep and call them in the morning.

The other, smaller, rebellious part of his mind would keep him awake all night.


End file.
